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JWG

Weekend Dance camp

October 24th, 2012

This weekend was the Lavender Country and Folk Dancers gender free dance camp. We have them twice a year and this was my 31st one! There were about 115 people contra dancing, English Country dancing, laughing, eating, talking and being part of a community since many of us come to these camps regularly and dance together in local dances and have other shared experiences. We had a fabulous band, Elixir, who play clarinet, trumpet, trombone, fiddle, guitar, and feet in extremely jazzy renditions of many tunes for both contra dances and english. The trombonist, Nils Fredland is also the contra dance caller.

Needless to say I and just about everyone there had a fabulous time.

Dancing starts on Friday night at 7:30 and the last dance ends at 3:30 on Sunday. On Saturday night many of us get dressedup. I wore a red sequined tails/dress, a floppy hat, pearl necklace and earings, and a gold handbag (which was impossible to dance with).

Below is a video taken by Doug Heacock during the dance party.

Opening the saturday evening dance is a Variety show where various people dance, sing, or do other things of great amusement. I usually give a "scientific" lecture on some topic of great importance. This time I, as Doctor Professor (dressed in Irish costume), described my discovery and interpretation of some carvings in a Ireland church that I visited last May. The lecture, titled 973 AD, illustrated that it was actually an Irish person who created the English Country Dance called Barbarini's Tambourine in the 10th century as opposed to the current mode of thinking that the tune was written in 1745. To the right is a drawing of the carving I found.

Later that evening Tom Amessé, the English caller, called that dance and he first said that since everyone already knew it from my lecture he wouldn't have to teach it.

Below is a video (not from our Dance camp) of Barbarini's Tambourine performed by the Heritage Musick and Dance Society.